Stickers and GIFs featuring the bear, the most famous resident of Hundred Acre Wood, have also been removed from WeChat - a messaging app used by 889 million people in the country.

Some pictures of the AA Milne character and references using his English name are still permitted on the popular Twitter-like platform Weibo.

No explanation for the ban has been given by officials, but the bear has been compared to Chinese President Xi Jinping in the past and the crackdown comes in the run up to China's 19th Communist Party Congress.

Chinese social media users have been testing the boundaries imposed on the lovable creation of AA Milne.